Cardon goes negative on Flake in Arizona (Updated)

Conservative self-funder Wil Cardon, who has been spending heavily to introduce himself on the airwaves, is up with his first direct attack ad against GOP front-runner Rep. Jeff Flake.

A media-tracking source passes on the spot below, which targets Flake's past support for a revenue-neutral carbon tax, which would have attempted to drive down emissions while offsetting a carbon tax with other tax reductions.

"Congressman Jeff Flake wants an energy tax. Flake's plan raises energy taxes nearly a trillion dollars in 10 years, increasing taxes on coal and gasoline. Higher taxes on businesses. Families will pay $1,000 more a year for utilities and gas," the commercial says. "Flake says his tax is revenue neutral, government will give taxpayers money back. Flake trusts the government with more of our tax dollars."

The kicker: "Jeff Flake: career politician we can't trust."

My source tells me the commercial has $301,000 behind it, covering cable and broadcast airtime in Phoenix and Tucson, between May 15 and May 21.

Cardon has already staked out a position on the right end of the GOP primary, running ads to highlight his strongly conservative position on immigration. This spot is the first instance of him directly swinging a hatchet at Flake on the air.

Polls have shown Flake with a wide advantage in the Republican nomination fight, so we'll have to wait and see whether Cardon's spending — and more frontal engagement — does anything to change that. The presumptive Democratic nominee is Richard Carmona, the former U.S. surgeon general who would likely have a better shot against Cardon than Flake.

I've reached out to both the Flake and Cardon campaigns and will update as necessary.

UPDATE: Cardon spokeswoman Alyssa Pivirotto confirms they're up with the spot, and comments: "Jeff Flake's ripoff of Al Gore's carbon tax is bad for Arizona families and bad for Arizona businesses. It's typical of a career politician. Let's give Washington nearly a trillion dollars in new energy tax money over 10 years and expect them to give it back in another tax cut. That's not living in the read world."

UPDATE II: And in comes the Flake campaign with a statement returning fire on Cardon as a reckless spender of "his family's money." "Wil Cardon’s attack comes as little surprise since he is spending millions of his family’s money to attack Jeff Flake’s hard-earned reputation as one of the nation’s top conservative reformers," Flake spokesman Andrew Wilder said. "Cardon represents the old, big spending ways of Washington that has put the country in the fiscal mess it’s in — we don’t need more people like that in Congress."

The Arizona primary isn't until August; at this rate, it'll be a long three months for both candidates.

UPDATE III: In addition to the earlier statement from the Flake campaign, a Flake spokesman forwards a message from Art Laffer — the well-branded conservative economist — backing up the congressman's position on the revenue-neutral carbon tax.

"The bill that Jeff Flake cosponsored was a smart, free market, conservative approach to expose the Democrat’s Cap and Trade bill for was it was — a massive tax increase," Laffer said.